


Poison Like a Snakebite

by Calacious



Series: Ho oku i [16]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, Memories, Poison, Steve Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 18:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4636548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poisoned, Steve recalls working in his uncle's garden, shortly after he was sent to the mainland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poison Like a Snakebite

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the characters of this work of fiction, and don't make any kind of profit through writing this. 
> 
> A/N: Inspired by Godsmack's, "Voodoo". 
> 
> Let me know if you like this. I crave feedback. Mahalo

The poison burns as it travels from the injection site up along the veins in his right arm; if it reaches his heart, he'll die. And, all that Steve can do is think that this must be what snake venom feels like when it enters the veins. Like white lightning. Hot. Sizzling. Pain that steals breath and dulls all the other senses. He can't even hear right now, and knows that's not right, because Danny's there, and there's no way on earth that Danny wouldn't be saying something right now.

He thinks he hears a gunshot. Several. Maybe. But his concentration's crap, and the needle-prick that Doctor Death ( _"And who the fuck calls himself something that sounds like it's straight out of a comic book?"_ \- an echo of Danny's thoughts) delivered to his forearm looks like it's bigger than it is, because his eyes are zeroing in on it, and he can't see anything else right now.

The poison is licking its way through his veins, like wildfire. It'll stop his heart if the antidote isn't administered within seconds; nothing like the venom of a rattlesnake bite which gives its victim minutes, hours, sometimes days.

He's only been bitten by a snake once. Didn't even remember it until now. He feels like laughing, because, as far as moments to remember when his life is flashing before his eyes, this isn't really all that significant.

It had been a harmless garter snake - green and yellow striped - if his memory isn't playing tricks on him. It had happened shortly after he'd arrived on the mainland, after his mother's faked death, and the funeral; his father's life-altering edict.

He'd been consumed by grief at the time. The poison-less snakebite had barely registered.

He recalls it now, though, in stark detailed pictures that switch with each beat of his heart, like one of those slideshow presentations that he tries not to fall asleep while watching; Danny, or Kono nudging him in the side when his eyes start to close.

He doesn't know if his eyes are open now. The poison is acid, and it blinds him to all but memory.

He'd been working in his uncle's garden, stubbornly refusing to wear gloves as he tore weeds out at the roots, occasionally using a rusty, wooden-handled spade to help break up the hard-packed dirt. His uncle had called it honest work. It was hard, and Steve had hated it at the time. He'd hated everything back then.

Now, though, as the poison eats away at him, Steve wonders at the wisdom of the man who'd taken him in when no one else had.

The sky was blue. There were scattered clouds, but it was hotter than summers in Hawaii had ever been. And humid.

He'd knelt in the rocky earth, rocks digging into his knees. His hands were grass-stained and swollen, but the physical pain kept the ache in his heart away, and helped him to push memories of his mother, and the father who'd rejected him and Mary, out of his mind as he worked.

He'd muttered a startled, "Ouch!" when the snake bit him, and scowled at the fiend as it slithered away into the tall grass - the spade only a short reach away. His eyes had filled with tears that he refused to let fall. Sweat coursed down his back, into his eyes, and Steve attacked the weeds with renewed vengeance, the twin pinpricks in his thumb throbbed in time with the rapid beat of his heart.

He can feel his heart beating now, and something is off-kilter. The sky is blue. It's hot. There are clouds, but he can't see them. All he can see is blue, and his eyes sting with sweat.

He blinks, cheek smarting from a slap that he hears two seconds after it's been delivered. Danny's blue eyes - wild and panicky - finally register, and he wishes that he could read his partner's lips, but Danny's talking too fast, and his vision's starting to dim, and Steve can guess the words anyway. They're the same words that he'd be saying to Danny if there roles were reversed: _Don't give up...Stay with me..._

And he wants to do that, tries to, but like some of the weeds that he'd plucked in his uncle's garden - everything, including the pain - slips away from his grasp, and suddenly the pain is gone, and the blue of Danny's eyes is swallowed up in white.

And he's floating. He feels nothing. Sees nothing. Hears nothing. And Steve wonders if this is death. If he'll get to see his father, or if, now, his life will flash before his eyes, something beyond the garden and the snake, the fine splinters - remnants from the wooden handle of the spade - that his 'uncle' had used a sewing needle, heated with fire from a struck match, to remove from his abused hands. It felt like it had taken hours, but Steve knows now that it had taken only a matter of minutes for his uncle to gently work each of the wooden pieces out of his hands. It had hurt anyway, and Steve wore gloves the next time he tended the weeds.

The blanket of nothingness that Steve's wrapped up in disappears with a hiss of pain that slams into his consciousness, displaces his memories, wakens him, and he's gasping air, watching the ghost of his memory slither away into the tall grass of his uncle's garden.

Danny's there, hovering over him, lips moving in rapid-fire, and, though there's pain, it's subdued. Steve can feel the antidote racing alongside the burning of the poison, vying for lead position.

"I can't hear you, Danno," Steve says, maybe shout-whispers if the confusion that twists Danny's face is anything to go by.

"Kiss me," he tries when Danny's lips move again, dizzying and too quick for Steve to follow.

Danny's always been like that, though. A whirling dervish. Steve's own whirling dervish of lips and words, and Danny's mouth feels like overheated coffee, tastes like breakfast cinnamon and something that might be desperation, if desperation had a flavor. It's tangy and steals the last of Steve's pain away.

"God, Steve, don't you ever fucking do that to me again," Danny says, warm breath caressing Steve's neck and making him shiver. Danny slaps Steve's chest, screws his eyes shut, and then pulls Steve in for a heated kiss that makes his head swim.

"'M alive," Steve says, words barely making it past lips that feel numb.

"No thanks to that stunt you pulled," Danny says, though there's no heat behind his words, and he's still got a firm grip on Steve, lips brushing against Steve's jaw.

"He was going after you, Danno, I -"

"Should've shot the bastard," Danny interrupts, and there's definite venom in his voice this time.

"I couldn't take the risk," Steve says. "You -"

"Don't, Steve, just...don't," Danny says, and Steve nods, presses his lips to Danny's cheek. Danny's shaking, and Steve can feel fine tremors running through his own limbs.

"There's no way I'm getting out of going to the hospital, is there?" Steve asks, hating that it sounds like he's pouting, because he isn't. He just hates hospitals.

Danny's chuckle is dark, and the smile that graces his lips is more than a little feral. "You bet your sweet, Navy ass, you're going to the hospital."

Sighing, Steve closes his eyes, lets Danny hold him, though he knows he's out of the woods now. He'll go to the hospital, let Danny chew him out, and, when Danny winds down, they'll make love, because, out of the woods or not, Steve needs to know, they _both_ need to know, that he's alive, and that, at least for the time being, he isn't going anywhere.

* * *


End file.
